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Perhaps you are looking for the system to help describe the action when the mechanics are too generic. I would suggest taking a look at Harnmaster 1st edition (I can't speak to the later editions) which has a detailed hit table for the various body parts (and alters for facing...like primarily left side/right side or higher or lower elevation), the crit table also differentiated edge/pierce/blunt. Granted it is for low fantasy/medieval fights, but with a little work, could be adapted to your liking for T2k. It may be enough just to have the table for where you are hitting to be more descriptive...uppper arm, elbow, lower arm, wrist, hand.etc.

spicing up the melee by homebrewing more detail/mechanics into melee by borrowing from other systems might help.

Regarding HTH unarmed damage 1 and crit 4. Keep in mind specialities: Brawler +1 to close combat, melee +1 knife/bayonet/club, and martial artist drops your crit threshold to 3. Roll 3 successes and you just did a HTH crit (roll 10 on the head and that is instant death). Brass knuckles gives +1 damage?? (or ninja climbing claws etc). Knife/bayonet with dam 2 crit 3 just needs two rolled successes to be a crit. Axe with 3 dam and 3 crit, just needs to hit.

"enemies are able to block", only if they saved their slow action.

Blocking is a fast action, which is partly what makes the fights drag.
I just had one PC have a one on one fistfight with NPC gang leader. Both had brawler btw as awell as pretty good skill levels.
With blocking it turned into a way too long dicefest instead of an exciting bout. Yes there were takedowns, throws, grappling etc but mostly they dissolved into attempts due to blocking.
I will probably just do 2-3 rounds in the future and that will decide the outcome of the fight or something along those lines.

The underlying ”problem” is what was pointed out by others: the system is mainly designed for firearms obviously, so the damage output of h2h is minimal. While this might work from scaling/game realism point of view, at least in my games from ”gameplay” perspective fistfights have a habit of dragging on way too long.
But I got good ideas from this thread from many, thank you all!

I believe you shouldn't be able to block a dive or grapple, I think attack is only the attack to damage, but I can see a block against a shove/sweep and against a disarm.

I in fact find weird that shooting and punching is a slow action, meanwhile getting an arrow in a bow ready to shoot and aiming are fast... I would treat them differently but I'll be playing by the book, for a while at least.

Again, we're talking rounds of 5-10 seconds here. So shooting an arrow is a fast action, because we're talking ONE arrow. Shooting and punching are slow actions, because we're talking being preoccupied with shooting and punching for most of one rounds. It is not, as others have stated, a blow by blow system. It took us time to figure out what that means, too. It's different from other systems like D&D, GURPS or Shadowrun, but more abstract.

I in fact find weird that shooting and punching is a slow action, meanwhile getting an arrow in a bow ready to shoot and aiming are fast... I would treat them differently but I'll be playing by the book, for a while at least.

Again, we're talking rounds of 5-10 seconds here. So shooting an arrow is a fast action, because we're talking ONE arrow. Shooting and punching are slow actions, because we're talking being preoccupied with shooting and punching for most of one rounds. It is not, as others have stated, a blow by blow system. It took us time to figure out what that means, too. It's different from other systems like D&D, GURPS or Shadowrun, but more abstract.

Having played FFG's Star Wars games helped me a lot with this.

In those, a combat round is about a minute long and most non-important NPC's are in "minion groups" and only count as one entity.

You can literally gun down several enemies in one turn without a problem.

Took me a long time to understand that... And it helped with the transition to T2K

It makes all the sense if you have a single abstract round where multiple things can happen or if you abstract the entire turn.
But in T2K knocking and arrow is fast, making a single unaimed shot is slow.

The turn is 5 to 10 seconds, that is great, I get the abstraction and all that, I suggested using that abstraction as leeway to describe the exchange in a close combat, all that is great.

My comment bout the slow vs fast is just that...some actions were made slow because of game reasons, like not shooting twice because you use the ammo rules to do that as part of the shooting attack.
Ii get the abstraction and game design choices, but I thing some cases, maybe fringe cases, looks weird.

Things like starting an engine (many heavy vehicles and some small will take more than 10 seconds to start moving, or even starting the engine alone), grab the wheel (probably means moving from shotgun to driver position in a car), prepare bow, reload (this one at least requires a roll to make it fast, that makes sense)...most of these can also be done very fast, but then you can do them twice in a turn but can't shoot two single shots with a semi-automatic. the ammo rules force you to use 6 shots to hit someone else and never unless you hit your primary target.

I know the streamlining of the game and the abstraction have a price (in simulation mostly) but this is weird non the less.

I have had similar problems with boring h2h combat in other games, not played T2K but have it on the shelf. Isn’t the problem simply that too little damage is dealt (or can be dealt) per round. H2h combat should be even more scary than firefights I think.

Blocking is a fast action, which is partly what makes the fights drag.

Can blocking be made into a long action, so you have to choose whether you attack or block? This only works if you add a separate initiative order for h2h that is decided every round, Agility-check perhaps? You can do a D&D B/X initiative where simultaneous actions are possible as well.

Can armour be said to not work in h2h combat, at all? Its ballistic armour after all, the helmet does not protect the eyesockets. Buhu if someone want their flak vest to protect against an axe. Axes should be scary!

Here’s a thought - taken straight from blade runner:

Close combat is dangerous, even for you as the attacker. Therefore, a close combat attack against an active and aware opponent is resolved as an opposed roll using the skill for the weapon they are using. The winner of the opposed roll – even if it’s the defender – hits the loser and inflicts damage equal to the weapon’s base Damage rating. If the opposed roll is a tie, no one is hit. Remember that only you, the attacker, can push the roll, even after the defender has rolled.

A solution could be to get rid of all of those close combat things and must make it an opposed roll

Leonpoi that is brilliant. I was toying with the idea of making it opposing roll. The damage being inflicted even when defending will speed up H2H dramatically, since basically both the PC and NPC turn will inflict something. Add to that descriptive effects that player wants to achieve (disarming, grappling, takedown, arm lock what ever) and it might be exactly what I need. Will test this in next weeks session. Nothing like a good bar room brawl to test stuff out:D Thank you!

That's a good idea.
A success may means a grapple or disarm, multiple successes may means graple and bashing the targets arm or head inflicting injury.

It do makes for a faster HtH, on the other hand it gets quite lethal.